


Wreck of the Day

by shopfront



Category: Torchwood
Genre: F/F, post-episode
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-04-03
Updated: 2010-04-03
Packaged: 2017-10-08 16:36:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,063
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/77557
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shopfront/pseuds/shopfront
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gwen really wants Toshiko to remember that love, happiness, and getting laid suited her. (Post 1x07, Greeks Bearing Gifts)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Wreck of the Day

**Author's Note:**

  * For [st_aurafina](https://archiveofourown.org/users/st_aurafina/gifts).



> Warnings continued: canon minor character death referenced.

Toshiko knew Jack was testing her when he offered to let her do what she wanted with the pendant. She may have had a recent slip in judgement, but she wasn't stupid, nor was she blind. Jack had followed it up with enforced hilarity, as he was prone to do, but the second she crushed that pendent under her heel (the way she'd wished she could crush the others for all the things they'd thought about her, if only she was that kind of person) the relief in his smile gave him away. Then he just walked off, like everyone else, leaving Toshiko sitting alone in the night.

She was still surprised at how much it hurt. How it could all still spark tears even after she'd talked it through over and over with Ianto until her eyes felt as dry as stone; how stupid she still felt for thinking these people were so different, had appeared so different, to what they thought deep inside. Mary had turned out just as unpure, just as violent and passionate and _hungry_ as her thoughts had sometimes been. Owen was the same single-focused, thoughtless and unempathetic individual she'd been so angry to find him out to be.

Gwen was....

Toshiko hadn't wrapped her head around Gwen, couldn't, except that she made Toshiko feel just as angry and just as invisible as everyone else did. How Gwen could keep shallow and catty going so well alongside mournful and emotional without developing a split personality (although, if Toshiko stopped to think about it, perhaps that was what Owen and Gwen were all about), she didn't understand. All she did know, really _know_ in a way that left a deep ache in her heart, was that even the ever-emotional Gwen, hired for her empathy and her caring, looked straight through Toshiko Sato on a regular basis.

She was just like everyone else, for all that her smiling eyes and her careful speeches tried to beg otherwise. But she wasn't walking away like everyone else had. Actually, she seemed to be walking towards Toshiko, clothes pulled tight and hair in her eyes.

"Do you want a lift home, perhaps?" She called loudly as she walked, hopeful grin wide and oblivious to the stares her yelling attracted.

"I don't know, I have my-" Toshiko started, and gestured back towards the nearest strip of cars once Gwen was close enough to hear any volume below a bellow.

"Don't be silly, you're not in any fit state to drive."

Toshiko didn't really know what to say about that, so she shuffled her feet while Gwen pursed her lips and peered at her in concern.

"I wouldn't want to be a bother," she finally ventured, but Gwen just grinned and grabbed her by the arm.

"Let me help, Tosh. I meant what I said in there. I'm in no position to judge, so I'm not angry. I also really don't think we should be releasing your driving skills on the unsuspecting public after everything that's happened." Tosh tried to force a smile, but mostly just let Gwen drag her along. This was awkward and excruciating, and far worse than their conversation in the Hub.

Though it _was_ nice that somebody still cared enough to drive her home.

Even so, it didn't take long in the car before Toshiko was wishing that Gwen hadn't cared enough after all. Conversation was stilted and awkward, except for when it wasn't and then it was full of emotional landmines that Gwen happily blundered through with nothing but her earnest eyes to shield her. By the time they reached her street, Toshiko had her usual bumbling thanks all carefully lined up and her bag in hand to make a quick getaway, but Gwen parked the car instead.

"I didn't drive you all the way out here just to have you pass out on your front step," she explained, once Toshiko had finally stammered her way to a stop. "Now here, let me help you," she demanded, and hurried around to the passenger door to help Toshiko out.

The walk to her front door was even more awkward and excruciating than everything that came before, if that was possible, especially when Gwen tried to break the tension by complementing Toshiko on the area she lived in. The trees, the grass. The cute stone fence across the road. All Toshiko could see is Mary sitting up high, smoking and stretching those long legs out in the sunshine.

Gwen just smiled expectantly at Toshiko once she'd got the door open, so she felt obliged to invite her in. Feeling bewildered and lost in an apartment that didn't feel like home anymore, she offered to make tea for lack of anything better to do, only to find that Mary had forgotten (probably on purpose) to buy more. Slightly desperately, she pawed through the contents of her pantry, not quite willing to admit that her homicidal, alien girlfriend couldn't even have been bothered to buy more tea when Toshiko asked her to.

"You don't have to make anything, Tosh, I really don't mind." Gwen's voice sounded like a distant echo she didn't really want to listen to right now. "Tosh? Are you still with me there, Tosh?"

"It's just... memories. Sorry." Toshiko wanted to sink the ground and cover her face with her hands, but she couldn't quite allow herself when Gwen was still there to witness it. It was hard enough to break down in front of Ianto as he walked her through the report, and she'd at least felt like they had some kind of kinship. Death and loss and mumbling inner voices about sadness eating away at their insides. "I didn't realise how many things she'd-"

She cut herself short and clenched her hands at her sides. The urge to point out each and everything little thing that Mary had touched, to cradle some of them in her hands, was hard to resist. There were the last lot of groceries Mary had bought home, just sitting there on the counter half unpacked like usual, and that bloody egg cup next to them. There was one of her impossibly short new skirts lying crumpled by the umbrella stand, half of its hem unravelled and frayed by Mary's fingers before Toshiko had convinced her to abandon it for greater pursuits than fashion.

It took Gwen's arms winding warm around her shoulders to shock her back to the now; to her messed up, Mary-less apartment.

"I think you should have a lie down, Tosh. You don't look so well."

It was so much easier to go along with Gwen's little pushes, let her guide them into the bedroom after a few false starts behind different doors and some half-hearted mumbling of directions from Toshiko. Gwen smoothed down the bed and settled Tosh across it, then perched on a corner and peered at her some more. Everything seemed so familiar, but wrong at the same time. It was a human hand brushing hair out of her face and staying by her side, rather than an alien sitting in the corner and offering little comfort, but she still felt just as empty and useless. Just as alone.

"Just stay there, I'll be right back," Gwen said, and then disappeared back into the hall. Toshiko could hear things being moved about in another room, but couldn't raise the energy to wonder what and where and why, so she twisted on her side and let the tears fall just like before. Then Gwen was back, all warm and helpful hands to help Toshiko struggle out of her jacket, and bring warm things to drink and cool cloths to lay across her face. Gently, so gently, Gwen wiped away her tears and leant forward to press a kiss to Toshiko's forehead.

Confused and surprised at such an intimate gesture, Toshiko looked up to find Gwen still hovering closer than she'd expected. Eyes on eyes and there was something more intense in Gwen than Toshiko was used to seeing, something that cut through everything to her very core, and dammit, why don't people _talk_ more, explain themselves and what they're feeling. Maybe that was part of Mary's appeal; none of these meaningful, but ultimately hard to read looks.

Gwen shifted back, hands firmly braced against the mattress on either side of Toshiko, and seemed to search her face for something, though Toshiko wasn't so sure what.

She was so tired and so wrung out, but she didn't want to feel alone anymore, so when Gwen leant forward again Toshiko didn't stop her. She wanted to feel, to push Mary's ghost out of the corner. She wanted to feel warm again, and Gwen was so warm against her, all hands and curves and determination.

"I should stop, but I won't," Gwen echoed herself a little while later, only this time she was wry and self-deprecating with her hands warm against Toshiko's stomach. Not at all serious or stony like the last time she said those words, though Toshiko hypothesised that it was harder to be serious and stony when you were half-naked and eyeing off someone's belt buckle through your lashes. She felt warmer now. Rather distinctly warmer, she has to admit to herself, with a blush as she panted into Gwen's neck, and if it can't replace the loneliness or Mary's ghost in the corner, then Toshiko Sato has never pretended she isn't good at fooling herself.

Then Gwen interrupted her thoughts by shifting purposefully against her, and everything else ceased to matter.

 

*** * * * ***

 

"Were you just looking for a more successful wake-up call?" Toshiko asked afterwards, her voice quick and shaky and her eyes downcast.

"What? No!"

Her eyes met Gwen's briefly, surprised at the vehemence of the cry and the emotion painted across her face as clumsy and obvious as it had always been with everyone except for Toshiko.

"No! Tosh... Oh, now I've gone and buggered it up properly, haven't I," Gwen sighed and shoved angrily at her hair, tangled and gnarled from Toshiko's fingers. "I didn't mean– I don't... I-"

"You mean you pitied me," Toshiko spat. She could feel her anger rising along with a curious sense of deja vu, only this time she was on the wrong side of the reassurance.

"Why would I pity you?" Gwen asked after a brief hesitation, all bluntness and confusion as she starts pulling her clothes back on.

_Because you all pity me, I heard it. I heard it all!_ Toshiko wanted to scream it into the night, throw the words in Gwen's face and show her the reality, but instead she bit hard on the inside of her lower lip until she tasted blood. It still didn't take much pressure to re-open the cuts Mary had left behind the last time they'd kissed in this bed, heady on passion and tears and secret feelings, and the tang abruptly brought her back to her senses; it reminded her of Mary.

_It's not like reading someone's diary._

"It doesn't matter," she stated as firmly as possible, leaning sideways off the bed to hook up Gwen's panties on her finger when Gwen looked about to protest. "It's probably time for you to be getting home to Rhys, anyhow."

"Oh, forget about Rhys," Gwen exclaimed. "No judgements, remember? I'm concerned about you, Tosh."

Those eyes again, earnest and piercing and Gwen's determination isn't quite so good in all it's guises.

"I'll be okay, really. I just need to get some sleep, that's all."

Gwen didn't look convinced, but Toshiko quickly displayed her weariest smile and refused to flinch under the scrutiny.

"Okay. If you're sure...," Gwen murmured, fighting a rising blush as she reached over for the panties. "Shall I pick you up in the morning, then? What with your car being back at the Hub and all...."

"Uh, yes? Yes, that would be nice. Thank you, Gwen."

"Right, then, I'll just...," Gwen motioned awkwardly towards the bedroom door with her shoulder, hands shoved in her pockets, and Toshiko nodded and smiled and felt like anyone other than herself.

"You know, Tosh?" Gwen paused in the doorway. "If I didn't have Rhys, I'd count myself lucky to have you."

When Toshiko looked up Gwen was already gone, but when the front door slammed Toshiko had a small smile dancing on her face.

**Author's Note:**

> Written for st_aurafina for the [Femslash08 exchange](http://community.livejournal.com/femslash08).


End file.
